Cliffhanger Dog

"Chief editor!"

"Chief editor!"

Clutching the manuscript like a precious treasure, He Chengwei trotted over and said, "You have to read this!"

"What has you so worked up?"

"Just read it first, read it!"

Baffled, the chief editor took it, while He Chengwei stood beside him and waited.

After a long while, the chief editor lifted his head from the manuscript, looking for all the world like a hyena in heat, and asked urgently, "What happens next? Is there more?"

"No, that's all there is!"

"Oh, this author is awful! He should finish telling the story!"

The chief editor was indignant too, but after a while he calmed down, and his indignation gave way to immense excitement. "We're always complaining that there are no good stories. Look, isn't one right here? That's why we need patience. The true masters are out among the people!"

"I don't agree. All the masters have gone to Budding and Harvest. Who'd come to our Story Club? He might have copied it from somewhere."

"Don't sell ourselves short. The popular literature we put out is what the masses love to see and hear. I'd bet you this man is a master. Just look at how he cut it off at the cliff fall. He knows how to tell a story!"

"Then do you think it needs any revisions?" He Chengwei asked.

"A few spots need smoothing out, but we can take care of those. The main story doesn't need any changes at all."

The chief editor pondered for a moment, then said, "Publish the whole thing together, don't split it up. That would make it less compelling. Readers will surely feel the same way we do. Just as he falls off the cliff, it suddenly ends, ha ha..."

He seemed to picture the scene and suddenly burst out laughing. Then he asked, "Did the author say anything about a continuation?"

"He said there's a second half, and he's writing it now."

"Good, good! Cut down the page counts of those other stories and give the space to Kapok Kasaya. Put it first in the table of contents too, so it stands out!"

Each issue of Story Club was a small, thirty-two-mo booklet of ninety to a hundred pages. Without illustrations, a page held around eight hundred Chinese characters. Kapok Kasaya was twenty thousand characters, so it would take up more than twenty pages, which wasn't very long.

There was a shortage of material these days, and a single story could be given more than thirty pages to fill out an issue.

"Where's the author from?"

"He's at Mount Lu. He said he'd return to the capital before winter, so we'll need to get the timing right if we write to him."

"Mount Lu? Returning to the capital?"

The chief editor scratched his head. "Sounds like he's no ordinary fellow. What's his pen name?"

"Uh..."

He Chengwei went back to his desk for a piece of paper, then returned and said, "Midnight Butcher, Little Qiang, I Want to Do Big Things, Northeast China's Guobaorou Is the Tastiest, Jade-Faced Little Mengchang, Timely Rain of the Capital, Sleeping Makes You Fair..."

"If we don't agree on any of those, then let's call him A Qi!"

"..."

The chief editor stared in astonishment, then burst out laughing. The other editors laughed too.

"What an interesting fellow. A Qi? Fine, fine. Write to him right away and convey our respect and friendship."

"All right!"

He Chengwei returned to his seat, but before he could put pen to paper, he heard the chief editor say, "Little He, why don't you make the trip yourself and meet this fascinating fellow?"

"All right, I'll set off tomorrow!"

He Chengwei was secretly delighted. It was just what he wanted.

"What rate should we pay him?"

"Pay a thousand pieces of gold for the bones of a fine horse. Go sound him out. If he's really got the goods, seven yuan per thousand characters is fine!"

Kapok Kasaya was a martial arts film from the mid-1980s, directed and written by Tsui Siu-ming.

He was currently at Hong Kong's Rediffusion Television, which later became Asia Television.

In 1981, he made a television series, Huo Yuanjia, starring Wong Yuen-san, Michelle Yim, Bruce Leung Siu-lung, Wai Chau-wah and others. It swept Hong Kong and was also the first Hong Kong drama imported to the mainland, where it became a sensation north and south of the great river.

Its theme song, "The Great Wall Will Never Fall," went: "The Great Wall will never fall, the Yellow River's waters surge for a thousand miles, beautiful rivers and mountains, peaks and ridges in layers of color, ask me how my country looks diseased..."

It was many people's introduction to Cantonese songs.

Afterward, Tsui Siu-ming made Chen Zhen and Huo Dongge, which were also hugely popular and made a star of martial arts actor Bruce Leung Siu-lung.

Later, Tsui headed north and co-produced Kapok Kasaya with the mainland. Yu Rongguang played the villain Qi Tianyuan and became an overnight sensation.

Tsui Siu-ming was an all-rounder: he could direct, write, act, sing, and choreograph martial arts. Moon Lee was his disciple. By rights, he was at the height of his fame in the 1980s, yet he suddenly vanished from sight.

Most accounts said he moved behind the scenes, but not why.

At the time, the Taiwan market was the Hong Kong entertainment industry's daddy. Ninety-nine percent of entertainers had to watch Taiwan's expression. Taiwan forbade Hong Kong stars from working with leftists, let alone going north to the mainland to make films. That was practically an "unforgivable crime"!

For example, after Chen Zhen became a hit, Bruce Leung Siu-lung visited the mainland. Taiwan ordered him to write a letter of repentance, but he refused: "I did nothing wrong. I only went home for a visit."

He was blacklisted, and if not for Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, he would have faded into obscurity.

The same happened to Tsui Siu-ming. After making Kapok Kasaya, he was immediately branded a "film worker aiding the bandits" by Taiwan and blacklisted across the board. Later, Kapok Kasaya won an outstanding film award from the Ministry of Culture, and Taiwan changed tactics.

After all, Taiwan needed to carry out united front work too!

Just imagine: if a filmmaker recognized by the mainland authorities returned to our embrace, oh, how much face we'd gain!

So Taiwan said: as long as you write a letter of repentance, stop making films on the mainland, talk about how deeply the mainland is mired in suffering, and pledge your heart to the party-state, we'll let bygones be bygones.

Tsui Siu-ming: I'm fucking not writing it!

He could only move behind the scenes.

Even many years later, when that bunch of trash in Hong Kong insulted China, Tsui Siu-ming still stood up and spoke out for the country.

Don't think the Hong Kong and Taiwan entertainment industries in this era were just about entertainment. They were always deeply wrapped up in politics; it was just that nobody talked about it. But that was a matter for another time.

In any case, Chen Qi had plans of his own. He had written Kapok Kasaya and would definitely make a film of it someday. He still wanted to find Tsui Siu-ming and bring him over... It wouldn't do not to look after one of his own.

He had made some changes to Kapok Kasaya. The male lead was originally a monk, and the female lead had always loved him. But he wore a shabby hat, kept his hair, and simply didn't say he was a monk. The logic was a real stretch, and he looked just like a scumbag.

Chen Qi didn't like it, so he changed him into a lay disciple and made their love mutual. That way, when he later decided to formally become a monk, the sense of fate playing tricks on them would be stronger.

It was more than six hundred kilometers from Shanghai to Mount Lu.

He Chengwei traveled at an easy pace and arrived two days later.

He came to Guling and found the hotel using the address. It struck him as a little odd, but he went inside and asked, "Hello, comrade. I'm an editor from Story Club. Someone here sent us a submission, and I've come to pay him a visit."

"A submission? You must have made a mistake. We're hosting a film crew," an attendant said.

"A film crew? Are they making a movie?"

"That's right!"

He Chengwei was bewildered too. "The address is right. His pen name is A Qi. Do you know him?"

"A Qi... oh!"

The attendant clapped her hands and said happily, "You mean Little Chen? His name is Chen Qi. He's the screenwriter."

"A screenwriter..."

A bona fide screenwriter had submitted a story to Story Club??

Before He Chengwei could react, the attendant said warmly, "He went out with the crew today. Wait here a while, he'll be back this afternoon... Let me tell you, Little Chen is a good man, and he really knows how to tell stories..."

(Comrades, please keep the monthly votes coming!

That's all...)

(End of chapter)